


The Sleeping Beast

by Arabwel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Adolescent Sexuality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Animal Death, Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, Cross-Generation Relationship, Derek and Laura don't visit, Don't Try This At Home, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Embedded Images, Epilepsy, Erica and peter are both very hurt and lonely, Erica is Peter's Morality Pet, F/M, Frottage, Hospitalization, Hospitals, Illnesses, Injury Recovery, Kissing, Minor Character Death, Minor Erica Reyes/Stiles Stilinski, Minor Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore, Minor Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, No Sex, One-Sided Attraction, Only she's got issues too, Pre-Canon, Psychological Trauma, Revenge, So they bond, but no one is coerced or manipulated, like Winchester grade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:03:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7341985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arabwel/pseuds/Arabwel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the low lights, he looks like a <i>monster</i>. Erica gasps and tries to stifle the noise with her hands, eyes roving over the twisted, melted skin of his face, the scars upon scars that suddenly make the ones on her legs from all the times she’s fallen down feel like nothing at all. </p><p>The feeling of horror is followed by a rush of shame so intense she almost swoons. She<i> hates</i> it when people look at her and see someone ugly, someone<i> broken</i>. She is not going to do that. <i>Be</i> that. </p><p>Slowly, she steps forward into the room. </p><p>***<br/>In which Erica befriends a comatose man during her many visits to the hospital. He's no Sleeping Beauty and she's not Princess Charming, but she finds herself in a fairytale anyway</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sleeping Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my amazing artist, [Artist_vs_Poet](http://artist-vs-poet.livejournal.com/) for her wonderful art! Also, thanks go to my lovely betas <3 this fic would not have happened without you. 
> 
> As this fic deals with heavy subject matter, I've tried my best to tag for everything but if there's anything else you think should be tagged for, or if you want to know if a specific thing is present in the fic please let me know.

The first time she sees him, neither one of them remembers it. 

Erica barely remembers _anything_ from that night, after a hard seizure and so much pain and vomiting. Barely remembers being pushed into a room in the grown up ward—children’s ward has a burst sewage pipe, everything in disarray, people shuffled everywhere—and left to sleep next to a man with burns. She’s too weak to even lift her head to look at him and doesn’t want to. She wants to go _home._

She doesn’t remember waking up in the middle of the night, doesn't remember sitting up, or nearly falling down when she gets out of the bed. She doesn’t remember reaching out and touching the unburnt side of the man’s face.

Everything is a blur when she is taken to another room in the morning, replaced by a woman who can’t sleep. Someone whose parents won’t complain about their daughter being in a room with an adult man, comatose or not. 

  
***

He predicted this. The Argents. _Burn us to the ground._

Did she listen? Of course not. Did anyone listen? They listened to _her._

_(A small voice calling him a hero. Touching his cheek, so tender and soft, the scent of a small human, a girl, hiding under sickness and chemicals.)_

Perfectly safe. That’s what she said. Too blind to see what was going on, unwilling to believe him about...about—

_But she made us weak! She made us weak._

Not again. Never again. __

_Like a vengeful God, I will raze this earth to the ground! I’ll, I’ll—_

He is almost cognizant when the rage reaches its peak, but it is not enough to cut through the pain. It’s not enough to even make his eyelids twitch as he lies there, wolf and man howling for blood in grief and anger trapped inside a shell of a body. 

***

It’s two-thirty in the morning when Erica sees him for the second time. 

She _should_ be in bed, should be lying down and sleeping. But she isn’t, her boredom at the inability to fall asleep and the fact that for once she only has the IV—she knows how to shut off the shunt, and it’s only saline anyway—and no heart monitor or anything, it’s all brought her here. 

She shouldn’t be in this room, she shouldn’t even be on this _floor_ , but she’s small and sly and the nurse on duty, Nurse Nancy, had slipped off to take a phone call. Erica barely had to duck to get past the nurse’s station undetected, hand sneaking out to swipe a few coins someone had left next to the phone. Her mom hadn’t left her any money, as usual. 

She’s only here because this is where the good vending machine is; the one with the sour Skittles. But there’s also a new nurse who is keeping an eye on things, and Erica _can’t be seen_ because she remembers how much trouble Nurse Bobby got into when they caught her last year, so she ducks out of the way, into this room. Into _his_ room. 

In the low lights, he looks like a _monster_. Erica gasps and tries to stifle the noise with her hands, eyes roving over the twisted, melted skin of his face, the scars upon scars that suddenly make the ones on her legs from all the times she’s fallen down feel like nothing at all. 

The feeling of horror is followed by a rush of shame so intense she almost swoons. She _hates_ it when people look at her and see someone ugly, someone _broken_. She is not going to do that. _Be_ that. 

Slowly, she steps forward into the room. It’s at the end of the ward, tucked to the side almost, but it’s close to the sacred vending machine. She wasn’t sure if they even used this room - not with the budget cuts she keeps hearing the nurses worry about. (She isn’t quite sure what that means, not for a hospital, but she knows it makes her mom worry, makes her look at Erica like she’s a- a burden.)

Erica doesn’t think about her mom when she moves forward. She’s been to the hospital so many times, she can tell the man on the bed has been here for a while. And he is a man, not a monster, just a guy who looks like he’s the same age as her dad but it’s almost impossible to tell with the way his skin has healed all gross and mottled, in what she knows are burns. She knows this from the length of the chart that's stuck to the foot of the bed, the chart she can barely make out in the dark. But she can make out the name.

_Peter Hale._

She thinks this could be Cora’s uncle. She misses Cora, remembers the news of the fire, remembers being too sick for the funerals. Remembers the nurses talking about how only three people had survived - two of Cora’s siblings, and her uncle.

Erica’s never met him; she and Cora weren’t that friendly, but she misses one of the few people who never called her names or laughed at her. And this is Cora’s favourite uncle, lying here in the dark, only accompanied by the softly beeping devices. 

He looks as broken as she feels and she can’t take it, she can’t breathe - 

Erica runs, heedless of the noise she makes. 

It’s a miracle she makes it back to her bed unseen, just in time for Nurse Nancy to come take her vitals and gently chide her to try to sleep. 

***

In the morning, she feels ashamed of herself. Of running like that. She hates it when people shy away from her, when Matt yells at her to stay away so they don’t catch “it” from her, and what did she do? She ran because… because Cora’s uncle Peter looked like he should be dead, like someone, something out of a horror movie with all the bandages and reddened, scarred skin. 

The doctor tells her she needs to stay a bit longer, that they’re worried about the levels of something in her blood after the new medication. That her parents can come get her in the late afternoon. Erica doesn’t listen, doesn’t really care because it’s all the same. Something’s wrong with her. _She’s_ wrong. And they can’t fix her.

The clock ticks on and her mom is late. Erica isn’t surprised, she knows her mom has to work long hours. She begs Nurse Hernandez to let her get dressed in her own clothes and not the hospital gown and with a long-suffering sigh, they let her. 

She asks if she can go to the vending machine when they wait. Nurse Hernandez says yes, slips her a dollar with a conspiratorial little smile. Erica beams back and once the nurse’s back is turned, her attention taken by the paperwork, she takes off at a not-quite-run. 

Erica never said which vending machine she meant. 

She doesn’t stop to spend the dollar on Skittles. Instead she heads straight to the room where Mr. Hale is - there are other people here at the ward, other visitors, she isn’t even the only kid around. She thinks she recognizes a boy from her school, but she isn’t sure. He’s too quiet. 

Mr. Hale is exactly where she left him, in the small, silent room. The curtains have been drawn back but the window is closed, the TV turned off and the only sound in the room is the beeping of the machines and Erica’s laboured breathing. 

He looks - less scary with the lights on. She can see more clearly just how damaged his face is, see the heavy heft of compression garments under the flimsy hospital gown. She thinks they’ve given him skin grafts or something. 

She sneaks closer, her sneakers making a soft noise on the floor and leans in to read his chart. She doesn’t understand most of it, it’s not the same words as her own, but she does understand _coma_. She sees _4th degree burns_ and flinches because she didn’t know they were a thing. 

Erica knows better than to reach out and touch him. You don’t touch random people in the hospital. But she feels so bad for him, for being stuck here in this room, with the beige walls and just a concrete wall showing through the window. There’s no real color in the room and Erica thinks it’s _boring_ , there’s not even any flowers. But maybe he can’t have any? 

She considers this, and then she notices something else. There’s no get well cards. There’s… nothing that she’s used to seeing around. There’s no bag under his bed, there’s no stuff on the little table next to the bed, not even a cup of water. (Well duh, he’s unconscious; he can’t have a drink whenever he wants to, dummy, she scolds herself) but there’s no sign that anyone has come to visit - there isn’t even a chair in the room. 

Erica thinks about the last time she was in hospital for more than a week. Thinks about her mom coming by during her lunch hour, about her dad spending an evening with her reading The Hobbit out loud to her. She thinks about her classmates making her a get well soon card - the fourth one this year- and how everyone, even Matt, signed it. 

That’s how she’s found - standing at Mr. Hale’s bedside staring at the empty side table. 

“Here you are!” and it’s Nurse McCall, she’s usually in the ER and not in the wards, so her voice starts Erica a little. “You shouldn’t be here, honey.” 

Erica swallows hard and looks down. “Sorry. It’s just.. no one ever visits him.” 

There’s a hand on her shoulder, a comforting weight. “His niece and nephew are in New York, sweetie. They can’t come by as often as they’d like.”

And Erica knows it’s a lie, knows it’s one of those comforting half truths adults like. Corey’s dad lives in New York, but he sends Corey cards and letters and calls every day when Corey is in the ward. She knows there are lots of people whose family can’t come by but there are cards, there are phone calls, there’s - something.

In that moment, Erica _hates_ Cora’s brother and sister. 

The hand on her shoulder squeezes softly. “Come on, your mom is waiting. It’s time for you to go home.”

Erica blinks, eyes wet.

“When does Mister Hale get to go home?” 

There is no answer. 

***

Peter is not _aware_. He hasn’t been for a while, even his rage spinning down with no outlet, no recourse. But it doesn’t mean that under all the pain and rage, under the maelstrom of agony of body and spirit trapping him like a statue of old, there isn’t _something_ that perks at the scent of fear turning into anger, of something familiar. 

*** 

It’s not until after Christmas that Erica ends up at the hospital again. She has a seizure because some _dumbass_ decided disco lights were still okay to have on your lawn in _January_. It’s just a focal seizure in her arm, shouldn’t be a big deal, but she threw up too and the nausea hasn’t gone away. 

It’s Nurse McCall who tells her that she has to stay overnight, and that’s what spurs Erica into asking if she could please visit Mr. Hale. 

There’s a handmade card in her hospital bag. She made it in school, when they were all tasked with construction paper and too much glitter to make something appropriate for the holidays. She got glue in her hair, not because she was clumsy because she's not, she’s precise and _careful_ , but because one of the boys poured it in. Her hair is shorter now, the clump that was missing on the left side had to be evened out on the other. 

Visiting hours are over, but the nurse promises that if her mom says it’s okay, they can go in the morning. Erica sulks a little but then another wave of nausea hits her and okay, she would like to not to throw up on Mr. Hale. That would be gross. 

Her mom is more than okay with Erica visiting a friend in hospital. Maybe it’s the way the nurse phrases it, not quite outright saying that Erica wants to go visit a comatose old guy whose dead niece she used to go to school with, but it’s probably just the fact that this way, Mom can definitely wait until lunchtime to come get her instead of having to leave work early. 

She doesn’t know a lot about burns. Kids with burns go to the burn ward, not to the pediatric ward, so it’s not like a lot of other things she’s learned a lot about: She spends a lot of time just laying there and doing nothing, because she can’t watch tv or play games or sometimes even read. But she can listen. She thinks maybe she should learn as they make their way down to the ward, the nurse from her ward handing her over to a nurse in the burn ward like she’s some sort of a relay baton. 

The door to Mr. Hale’s room has a paper snowman on it, but once they get into the room, it’s just as bare as Erica remembers. There’s another paper snowman tacked onto the window, a tiny garland on the foot of the bed, but the table is still empty and there are no chairs in the room.

“You’re the first visitor he’s had in a while,” the nurse says quietly. 

Erica clutches the card in her hands, glitter sticking to her fingers when she goes over to the bed. Mr. Hale looks - different, there are less bandages but he’s still plugged into all the machinery, beeps and hum surrounding him like white noise. 

Her hands tremble when she puts the card on the table. The text is a bit lopsided, the Merry Christmas gold and sparkly over the red cardboard - she knew Cora celebrated Christmas, so she thinks Mr. Hale does as well - and it looks so lonely here, on the table. 

She cleans her hands with the antiseptic alcohol wash but there’s still glitter under her nails when she takes hold of his unburnt hand. The skin is cool to the touch, almost waxy, and Erica can’t help but note his nails are a little long, the edges ragged. The nurses are too busy to groom him, she thinks. She remembers how her mom brushed her hair when she was stuck in the ward over Easter. 

_They didn’t even send a card._

***

The soft touch on his hand takes a while to penetrate through the haze. Peter has been touched, hands all over his body, pressing, massaging, stretching - trying to keep his broken body from becoming a twisted mass of scar tissue because he is not healing, not like a wolf should. His soul is like a ship in a storm - sails torn asunder, the ropes of broken pack bonds whipping along the decks casting the sailors into the dark cold depths of the ocean.

She touches softly, gently - something different from everything he’s felt since the fire. She is - familiar, but not from before. She’s human. _His_ human. 

He’ll start with her. When he - When he…. 

He _hurts._

**

Erica can’t forget how empty and cold Mr. Hale’s room is. She resolves to do something about it, but she doesn’t really know what someone who can’t wake up would like. He can’t eat so she can’t share her candy, and he’s definitely too old for stuffed animals. But everything was so _bare._

So, she draws. Drawing is something that is encouraged. It’s not flashy like TV or games and she can’t lose concentration and fall like rock climbing or ice skating. And, it’s cheap enough, with reams of copy paper from dad’s office and lots of pens branded with mom’s company logo. She has crayons and watercolors and nice paper, too, but that’s rare. Special. 

It’s some of her precious heavy watercolor paper that she uses to draw for Mr. Hale. She hesitates for a long while before she presses the pencil down, lets it stain the paper. Because she doesn’t _know_ him. She doesn’t know what he likes, and she’s pretty sure the usual boy stuff is out. No cars or planes. _Absolutely_ no fire trucks. 

She remembers the window in his room, how it looks out to nothing but a grey concrete wall. She remembers that Cora’s house was in the woods. So, she draws a forest. 

Erica spends hours and hours on it, trying to make it as pretty as the pictures of the preserve are on the county website, like the illustrations she sees in books. But she’s not very good, her lines shaky and the color spilling over the edges at places. But in the end she has a picture of the woods, with a lake and trees and a bird and a wolf, only a little smudged on the side. 

She is careful to not to clutch the rolled-up drawing too hard next time she goes in to have her bloodwork done. She even brings bluetack, knowing they might not have any. 

Nurse Kim looks at her with what she knows is pity and she _hates_ it, but nevertheless the nurse helps Erica put the drawing up on the wall so if his eyes open - sometimes they do, she’s learned that, but he still won’t see, not really - it’s in his field of vision. 

“I hope you like it,” she says quietly and ducks her head, even though she knows he can’t respond. Not even when she reaches out to touch his hand, to smooth the blanket a little. 

It’s gonna be another hour before her mom can come and get her, but Erica came prepared. She’s got _The Outsiders_ in her bag and two chapters to read before Monday. She’s lagging behind. 

Her voice shakes a little when she starts to read. _“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things in my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home…”_

_**_

It's been so long since he’s heard voices like hers. So long since he’s heard anything but snippets of other people’s conversations, the beeping of the machines. 

He remembers the story. Remembers the book. Wants to tell her no, wants to tell her anything but this, the book Derek was reading in school, the book he’s read too many times. The tale of all those malcontent children with no sense of self, scuttling along in the dark like frightened little rats, looking for something, anything to tell them who they are. Like - _yes._ Like _Kanima._

When he rises again he will have himself a Kanima. A _pack_ of Kanimas, to send after the Argents. 

_***_

In the next few months, Erica brings three more drawings - a songbird, a sunflower and a spaceship streaking through pink and purple skies. She finished the Outsiders, and starts on Where the Red Fern Grows. But there is something when she reads on, something that she can’t quite put a finger on - as if he’s frowning a little, something she can’t really tell with the scars on his face, or maybe he’s twitching with something more than random muscle spasms. So she stops, resolving to read the book at home. 

Instead, she talks through her history homework. 

Erica is miffed she doesn’t get to take the Easter card she made him to him in person. At least, not on time. She’s super proud of the card, too - it has big fat fluffy bunnies and little chicks she carefully drew on with gold marker. But it’s not like going to Oxnard to visit her _abuela_ for Spring Break is hard. She lets Erica stay up late and bakes the _best_ cookies. 

_She still has half a box of cookies left when she come back. She wishes she could share them with Mr. Hale, but he’s on a feeding tube - gross - and couldn’t eat them even if he tried. But she thinks maybe he’ll like the smell of cookies, so they’re still in her bag when she makes her way to the burn ward._

There was no card when she last saw him. She _bets_ there’s not one now either, the thought dark and vicious as she makes her way past the nurse’s station. She knows she should sign in but it’s not like they don’t all know her, and she’s in a hurry. 

The door to his room swings open quietly and she slips inside, swinging her bag off her shoulder. 

“HI, Mister…” she starts but the words die on her lips, her eyes growing wide when she sees the orderly stripping the bed. 

Mr. Hale is - he’s not on the bed. She looks around frantically but he’s gone, his chart is no longer tacked to the bed and the drawings she made, she can see them sticking out of the trash bin, hint of glitter clinging to the corners. 

“Oh hey, kid, looking for Hale? He’s gone…” 

Erica’s eyes widen. Mr. Hale is _gone._

He can’t be, he was doing so good when she last was here. She saw the smiley face on his chart, she knew his levels were _good_. He can’t have died, he can’t have - she’s trembling, little high-pitched gasps passing her lips even as she tries to not to sway, not to cry. She doesn’t hear what else he says, can’t grasp the words through the rush of blood through her ears. 

She almost feels like she’s gonna seize when a large hand grabs her shoulder. “Hey, you okay?” 

“He’s - he’s _gone_!” She gasps and the tears break through in a heaving sob, hot and salty as they splash down her face. 

She misses the orderly’s panicked look, misses him calling out for a nurse. She can’t stop crying, can’t stop the grief from thumping against her ribs because Mister Hale is _gone_ and she wasn’t here and no one was here and - and - 

“Erica, look at me.” the voice is familiar, barely. “He’s okay, do you hear me? Mr. Hale, he’s been transferred. He isn’t gone, he’s transferred. Take a deep breath:” 

It seems to take forever but finally, Erica calms down, unclenching her small hands from the nurse’s uniform. 

“Sorry I got - I got snot on you.” She hiccups, wiping her eyes with her hand. 

“Don’t worry, sweetie, that's far from the worst thing I’ve had on me today,” the nurse says softly and digs up a tissue from somewhere and starts cleaning Erica’s face. “Now, are you supposed to be somewhere?” 

Erica shakes her head. “No.” 

“You usually come here when you have an appointment,” Nurse McCall says quietly. “Did you come just to visit him?” 

Slowly, Erica nods. “I.. I had a card for him,” she mumbles, looking down at the tips of her scuffed sneakers. 

The nurse purses her lips. “Funny, I thought for sure you had an appointment in the long-term care ward on the other side of the courtyard. Maybe you should go check with your mom?” 

Erica blinks, opens her mouth to say she’s never had an appointment at the long term ward but then she gets it. Nurse Mccall can’t tell her. It’s _confidential_. She probably shouldn’t even tell her Mister Hale is still alive. She certainly can’t tell Erica he's now in the nursing home, but… 

“Maybe I do,” she says slowly. “T-thanks for, thanks for reminding me.” 

“It’s okay. Now, come on, let's leave Barney to do his job, okay?” 

Erica nods, wiping her hand over her eyes. “Okay. I just - can I take the cards? I don’t - “ it _hurts_ , seeing them in the trash. 

The nurse looks where she’s pointing and nods softly. “Of course. They should have gone with him in the first place.” 

The orderly, Barney, shrugs. “They were in the bin when I came in, miss. Maybe he didn’t like them.”

Erica shakes her head. “He wouldn’t. He - he’s - “

“Barney, I don’t think a patient in coma would express a preference. Do you know who did the transfer?” She says something about policy, too, and Erica tunes it out, doesn’t want to listen as she moves to the bin and pulls the drawings out. There’s nothing but paper in the bin so they’re okay, no water or food spills on them. 

“--I’ll have a word with Jenny,” the nurse is saying when Erica straightens up, clutching the drawings with sweaty fingers. “Oh, all done, dear?” 

Erica nods. “Yeah. Now excuse me I have - an appointment:” 

***

He can’t smell her anymore. 

The faint scent of her no longer clings to paper, no longer lingers on the edge of his bed, in his room under the antiseptic. 

He is - he is not in the room any more. There is an underlying scent of age and decay, different from the lingering fire, the lingering memory of flesh sizzling and curdling. He can’t smell her any more, so young and tender, the smell of sickness and medicine covered in a faint spray of something that makes him think _Cora_ , makes him think _Ellie_ , think of his nieces. Some disgusting mass-marketed thing all the little girls thought made them so grown-up, something he’d thought had burnt his nose. But it’s nothing like fire, nothing like the superheated air that burned into his lungs, that’s driven sanity away… 

Peter always did like Scarecrow. (He can’t think of his face melting off, can’t think of the flames, can’t give into the flame - there’s no coins, no coin toss, there’s no chance this wasn’t _deliberate murder wrath vengeance…!_ )

His hands curl into fists, blunt human nails digging into his palms. He will find a way. He will turn Beacon Hills into his own personal Narrows, drive the sanity out of everyone’s head when they breathe in the pain. 

**

Erica can't make it to Mr. Hale that day. Her mom wants her home, and she knows she can't just march up to the ward and be like what up I've got a friend here. Or can she? She doesn't know, she's never been to the long term ward to visit. She should probably find out, but she knows she can't ask Nurse McCall any more questions.

With all her drawings and the two cards carefully tucked into her backpack, she makes her way back to the hospital the following Saturday. Dad's away on business again, and she knows her mom is just happy she will be out, will be somewhere safe where she can't get into trouble or try doing anything dumb like getting on the monkey bars or god forbid, a skateboard. She's not allowed to even sit on anything that's not a real chair or a bench because her mom is worried she'll fall and hurt herself again. It sucks super hard.

She tried to brush her hair and braid it, put on a nice shirt, but her hair is already escaping the ties and she knows she already looks stupid and dorky. Her mom didn't want to help, didn't have the time or patience to detangle her hair so it would be less frizzy. Erica envies Hermione the hair smoothing charms and the pretty dresses - what wouldn't she give to have a magic wand, too! But Hermione is also smart and Erica knows she's - she's not. She's average, on a good day, with the way everything makes her tired and how it's sometimes so hard to make sense of words on pages.

At least she hasn't been held back. That would be - that would be the worst. She can't wait for high school. There will be no stupid, stinky head middle school bullies there.

The nurse on duty at the station is looking at her like she's lost. She doesn't recognize the woman, and thinks this is probably someone new, since Erica likes to think she knows almost every nurse by sight by now. The nurse has gentle dark eyes when she looks Erica up and down, taking in her scuffed shoes and the fact that her overalls are too long at the cuff, and the fact that the flowers she's clutching in her hand are definitely not from the florist. She picked them on her way, maybe she snatched something from a garden too but there was no one to see her so it doesn't count.

"Are you here to visit someone, _mija_?" the nurse asks, tilting her head towards the ward proper.

Erica nods and swallows past the lump in her throat. "Yes, ma'am. I'm here for - I'm here for Uncle Peter," the words rush out. "I mean, Peter Hale? He - he came in a few days ago, from the burn ward." She clamps her jaws shut, tries not to say anything more, prays this is enough and not too much to get her past, get her in to see Mr. Hale.

"I wasn't aware he was going to have any visitors." There's a hint of surprise in the woman's voice.

Erica tries to smile. "I'm the only one who comes in to see him. Everyone - everyone else is in New York." Which is not a lie.

The nurse looks sad for a moment. "Very well, then. Sign here on the visitor sheet; visiting hours will be until 2 o'clock and if the doctor comes by, you're going to have to leave. You are at least 12, aren't you?"

She's not. "My birthday is next month," she says. She knows she doesn't look 12. She gets told she looks like she's in third grade a lot.

The nurse shakes her head. "All right, I won't make you wait. He's in room 103; there's a map on the wall where the disinfectant is."

The room where Mr. Hale is has a window, and an actual view. It's airy, with a little chair and a table and there's none of the desolate feel that his room in the burn ward had. Erica can still smell the disinfectants and plastic, but there's a blanket draped over the foot of the bed and not just a sheet, the ugly brown felt in all its scratchy glory something she knows well.

"Hey, Mr. Hale," she says softly as she approaches him. He looks - he looks different here, with the sunlight. "I - I brought you the drawings and the cards I made."

**

There are more doctors. There are more needles, more machines. It is gradual, but something within Peter slowly curls awake, something that jolted him out of complete insensate coma into simply being - being not there. 

He can hear the doctor say he’s almost awake, hears words spoken that have no meaning. He tries to snarl, but his face is too weak to do more than to twitch, pain lancing along his face as the scars tug and pull and start bleeding again. 

So many doctors, so many dreadful doctors… 

Dread… Doctors? 

He remembers - something. Somewhere, a spark of knowledge. 

These doctors are fixing him. Healing him. The Dread Doctors... can make him more. Make him better. Make him a living weapon of revenge. If only he can- if only he can - 

Peter gasps for air, body spasming on the bed. 

** 

Erica’s _abuela_ makes a lot of quilts and throws. Erica has a box of them in her room, and she knows her mom never looks in there, doesn’t think they’re important or worth anything. She won’t know that Erica has gone through them, one by one, until she picks out a dark blue throw with scarlet edging she thinks Mr. Hale might like. She remembers her mother scoffing at how it was _too masculine_ for a girl’s bedroom when they brought it home. She used it anyway, until her mother told her to put it away. Now, she wraps it around herself for a long while, imagines how it might feel for Mr. Hale. Tons better than hospital blankets, that’s for sure. Those things are _gross._

“I think he’ll like it,” Nurse Rose tells her when she sees Erica pulling it out of her bag. “In fact, I am not supposed to tell you this, but we think he might be able to tell you himself soon. You’re so brave, coming over to visit him so often.” 

Erica doesn't think she’s brave, but the idea that Mr. Hale could - that he could wake up flutters inside her like there’s a little bird trapped inside her ribcage, only it’s not heart palpitations and nothing like a seizure. “Really?”

The nurse nods. “I’m not saying anything, because it is all confidential you understand, but his test results and vitals look very good. ” 

“What happens when he wakes up?” Erica can’t stop herself from asking. 

She doesn’t like the answer one bit. The answer being “We don’t really know.” She likes the fact that apparently his family has not been answering calls since _December_ even less. His hospital bills are covered by his insurance but...

It makes her _livid_. She hates them when she carefully drapes the blanket over the foot of the bed, when she glances at his chart and resolves to look up what some of those words mean. She hates them when she walks home, after visiting hours, and comes home to a tupperware container in the fridge with her dinner in it.

She's still angry when she sees him again. She's at the hospital to get her bloodwork done, and as is now usual, her mom isn't coming to pick her up until visiting hours are over. She has a book in her bag, another one she has to finish by the end of the week for school. She's made it to most classes this past few months, hasn't had a big seizure in months. She knows she's gonna pass, that they won't hold her back, and she is so relieved.

Peter's family still hasn't called. The only cards are the ones she's made him, the only decoration the drawings she's painstakingly straightened that are now taped to the wall. He looks - he looks a little better than when she saw him last, his skin less waxy. But she knows it doesn't mean anything, and she hates how she can't ask anyone directly about him. How no one is allowed to tell her anything, not even the tidbits and crumbs she steals.

Someone's left the window open; it's chilly in the room and Erica reaches out to unfold the blanket she brought the last time, neatly hanging at the foot of his bed. She pulls it up over him hoping she isn't going to hurt him. But she knows they wouldn't have given him the old scratchy blanket if they didn't want him to have one.

"I hope you like it," she says softly when she brushes her hand over the unburnt side of his face. "I hope you wake up and can tell me."

When his head is tilted like this, with the scars angled towards the pillow, he looks so handsome. Gaunt and sickly, but the angle of his jaw, the cut of his cheekbone - he's _really_ handsome, she thinks, and tries to not to blush. She knows boys can't be princesses so he can't be Sleeping Beauty. If anything, he's the Beauty _and_ the Beast, with the way the scars tear his face up and down. Sometimes she wonders if he'd been a lawyer before, if he was like a real Two-Face, only she knows that's not a good thought to have at all. Two-Face was a bad guy.

She keeps touching his face. His skin is so warm under her touch, the stubble rough against her fingertips. Her heart suddenly hammers in her throat. She wants -

Quickly glancing behind her to make sure no one is passing by, that the door is covering the sight of the room, she leans forward and pecks him on the cheek, lips brushing against the corner of his mouth. 

"I wish you would wake up," she breathes softly against his skin before she straightens up and flees the room like she's been burnt.

***

He can hear her. He wants to wake up. Wants to grab her hand, wants to hold it to his cheek and _drown_ in her scent, all the innocence and bitterness and anger, so much anger under the medicine and pain. 

But he can’t. All he can do is lie here, lie and struggle against the shackles of his body, of his mind. His wolf is howling inside him, howling for the girl - howling for something, _anything_ to fill the void deep inside where the loss of pack has become a gnawing emptiness. A burning dark pit full of hunger. 

She is - she is soft. She is gentle. She is not - functional practical pitying. Never pity. Not from _her_. Not from his small human. 

His small human is covering him in soft blankets, she’s denning him and that’s not right, it should be the Alpha - but his Alpha is _gone gone gone mama where are you talia what’s going on where’s mom - Talia is gone, Talia is dead, his Alpha is - his Alpha is - it should have been him. It should have been him, he’s the one who’s strong, he’s the one who can - he’s--_

_“He’s not even human any more, Derek. Let's go.”_

His Alpha abandoned him. He should have been the Alpha all along. He has been, has been the one to do the hard work, the one to shoulder the choices Talia would not and it lies between them - he’s never been what Talia wanted. Ńever been like Deucalion. Deucalion who trusted _hunters, trusted Argent,_ who - who was Alpha. Became _Alpha of Alphas._

Peter will find him. Make him come here. Make him - make himself the Alpha - of Alphas. 

The pain surges up and pulls him under again, into the darkness filled with fire and pain. 

But when he comes up again, he‘s _awake._

***

Erica’s cheeks burn all the way home. How could she have done that? She’d - she’d _kissed_ him. So okay, it was on the cheek, but she’s never kissed anyone who wasn’t family before. And she knows she shouldn’t have. She knows it’s wrong to kiss someone who's sleeping, so it’s wrong to kiss someone who’s in a coma, too. 

But she can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop thinking about how it had felt different than running her fingers over his face, how rough his skin was against her lips. How he smelled like - like something strange and enticing, something _male_ , under the disinfectant. She tries to push it away but when she goes to bed and closes her eyes, she can only think of _what if?_ even though she knows it’s stupid. Fairytales aren't real, and she’ll never have a prince, charming or otherwise. Girls like her don’t get princes or hot guys. 

They don’t get anyone. The Spring Swing dance is only a short while away, and she knows she’s not going. No one’s asked her and she doesn’t have friends to go with, and they can’t really afford to get her a dress she’ll only wear once, and there’s _strobes_. She stares enviously at the girls in the corridors talking about dresses and boys and dancing instead of the looming tests. 

Erica likes all the standardized tests. She tests well, which is why she hasn’t had to repeat a year yet. She never wants to, never wants to be _that girl_ any worse than now. She’s already a freak, but then she’d be a freak who got _held back._

Even though she tests well, she still has to study and work hard at it to do better than just scrape by, eking through with no leeway. She wants to do good - she wants to have a good education, she wants to be able to go to college one day. (She knows her mom hates that she had to drop out because of Erica. Not because she was born, but because she is so needy and demands so much attention. So much money and resources. Can’t have law school debt when your kid is on two grand worth of meds in a month. She’s heard it all, even when they think she can’t.)

The first weekend after, she’s too exhausted to make it to the hospital to visit him, but not too exhausted to remember. The Friday after, when everyone else is buzzing about the dance she’s not going to, she heads to the hospital. 

She ends up walking behind two boys, ones who are in fifth grade too but not in her class. They’re talking in low, subdued voices, about skipping the dance, about spending the night playing computer games instead, and Erica feels something constrict in her chest. She wants to ask them if she could join them, but she can’t play anything with flashing lights. 

She doesn’t want them to tell her no. 

They’re ahead of her all the way to the hospital grounds, splitting off to see someone else when she makes her way to the long term ward, her soft sneakers making a squeaking sound on the corridor floor. 

There are no drawings in her bag today. She was going to bring nail clippers and a file but forgot to pack them this morning. She is pretty good with a file; she learned how to do her nails from an old copy of Seventeen with really good picture spread on how to do a manicure. She's not allowed nail polish, not even the clear stuff, because it could trigger a seizure, but she likes keeping her nails short and smooth. Long nails just break and tear and scratch. She remembers thinking his nails were too long when he was at the burn ward, the edges ragged and-

She’s startled out of her thoughts by a hand on her shoulder. It’s Nurse Rose, looking down at her with concern in her eyes. “Erica, before you go see Mr. Hale, I need to talk to you quickly, okay?” 

Erica swallows hard, but she doesn’t panic. “Sure,” she says, the words thick and heavy in her throat. Before you go see him -that's what she said, so Mr. Hale is still here, he’s still - he’s still alive. 

Nurse Rose takes her aside, sits her down. “Now, I shouldn't be telling you this, so I am not.” 

Erica nods. She knows the drill by now. 

“Now, do not get excited but... He’s no longer in a coma.” 

Eria blinks, unable to believe what she’s hearing. “He’s awake?” her voice rises a little, and she clamps her jaw shut, eyes darting around. She knows she’s not supposed to be loud. 

“Not - not exactly. Sweetie, have you heard of catatonia?” 

Erica frowns. It sounds - familiar. “Isn’t that in Spain?” 

“No, that’s Catalonia. Sweetie, Peter is awake, but he’s not talking or interacting. He’s been through a lot, so he is hiding inside his own head.” 

“Like - like a turtle in a shell?” 

“Yes, honey, just like that. So when you go into his room, you have to be very careful. He might move suddenly, or make noise, but he won’t be aware that you’re there. It’s okay if it is frightening.”

Erica tunes the rest of what she is saying out, blinking away tears that threaten to burn through her eyes. Mr. Hale is awake; he might not be aware, but he’s no longer in a coma. He’s - he’s getting better. He woke up. (She _kissed_ him, and he woke up.) 

“Can I - Can I go see him now?” she asks quietly, trying unsuccessfully to keep the quiver from her voice. The nurse nods, and Erica has to fight to not run, to not dash down the corridor to where Mr. Hale is waiting. 

She hesitates at the door of his room for a moment, but then the door is opened and one of the orderlies steps out. He holds the door open for her and waves a hand in a in-you-go gesture, and Erica doesn’t have a chance to hesitate, to back out of going in to see Mr. Hale any more. 

He’s not on the bed like she anticipated; instead, he is sitting in the chair that was empty during her first visit, his back to the door. _He could use a haircut_ is her first thought, but she pushes it aside. It’s stupid and she shouldn’t think about it. 

His shoulders are stiff, rigid even under the brown hospital robe, and she can't see any reaction in him when she slowly approaches. “Mr. Hale?” she asks quietly. “It's me. Erica. I came to see you.” 

There is no answer but she didn’t expect one. (She’s not a princess. This is not a fairytale. He is not going to wake up and sweep her off her feet no matter how much she’d like that.)

Slowly, she circles the chair so she can see his face. His eyes are open, and they are such a startling blue that Erica gasps, for a moment thinking they’re _glowing_ but that’s not true. It’s just a trick of the light, and surprise because she’s never seen him with his eyes open before. Sometimes people sleep with their eyes open, even coma patients, but his eyes were always closed, and they are such a gorgeous, bright blue it takes her breath away. 

"Hi, Mister Hale," she says softly, shifting from foot to foot. It's different talking to him like this than it is when he was lying down on the bed, even when his eyes don't move her way, when he shows no sign that he knows she's there. Or even that he's there, eyes fixated on a spot on the wall and breathing even. There's a fleck of spittle on his lower lip, like he's been breathing through his mouth for a while now, and Erica doesn't really think about it when she pulls a tissue from her bag and reaches in to clean it off.

"There, is it that better?" she asks softly. She knows she always feels better when the nurses help her like that, when she's too weak to even lift her arms to clean her face. When she's too weak to do anything but lay there and wish she could cry.

He doesn't answer; of course he doesn't answer. He just keeps staring at the wall, hands curled against the armrests of the chair.

Erica shivers,and it's not because of the room; it's nice and warm, and she can see the blanket is draped over the end of the bed still. She wonders if they've been using it for him, and if she should take it home to wash it or how that works here. She's sure someone will tell her if she asks.

She doesn't have to be home for another two hours. She'd planned on helping him with his hands, and yeah she can see the nails are ragged. She thinks she should bring lotion, too. And a hairbrush. She knows the nurses are always super busy and really appreciate it when visitors take care of that stuff, and no one else visits Peter. Maybe Laura and Derek will come back now that Peter is awake? She can only hope so. Maybe he'd wake up if they were here.

There's only one chair in the room. She isn't going to be a bother and ask for another; she can sit on the floor just as easily. She likes sitting on the floor; it means that if she has an episode she won't fall off a chair and hit her head as hard or get bruised as bad. So she sits down, cross-legged next to his chair, and pulls a book out of her bag.

"Miss Brooks said that if I do an extra book report, she'll give me extra credit to pass this year. And I got to pick the book, too. I wish all the teachers were as nice. I have to go to summer school for math." She speaks quietly as she strokes the spine of the book, the lettering faded. He's easy to talk to, and she has to resist the urge to lean against his pajama-clad leg, to put her head against his knee like she's some sort of a stupid dog. But she's still close enough to feel the warmth of his body. It’s easier than looking at him, than feeling all these disconcerted, confused things welling up in her chest. 

It's so easy to talk to him, so much easier than it is to her parents or to any of the doctors or counselors or what few friends she has. She thinks briefly of the two boys she followed to the hospital, of their easy friendship. She wants a best friend, too. She wants to go play games and have sleepovers and be invited to birthday parties, but the last time someone did that it was Heather's party and they held it at the arcade.

Erica couldn't go. They had strobe lights.

She opens the book to the first chapter. She's read it before, so it's easy. It's almost cheating, but she doesn't care. She's gonna take Spanish in high school, too, take it just to have something she knows she'll pass. She clears her throat before she starts to read out loud. "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit..."

***

Being awake is - different. It's worse, almost. Now he is much more aware, the _painrageguiltfearrage_ dragging him under less often, the darkness enveloping him in fire and agony coming only in the dark. But it isn't much better - not when he feels trapped, trapped in the shell of his body, trapped in the shell of his mind.

When they tell him to sit up, he sits up. When they tell him to eat, he opens his mouth and lets them ladle broth between his chapped lips. When they take him to the bathroom..... it's as if his body is a machine they operate, and not something of his own.

All that is his own is the pain, the constant, ripping, aching pain deep inside him. The loss of his pack, the bonds torn and flayed from his very soul, the fire, the betrayal - it's all still churning up inside him. It's all he has.

That, and his small human. She's back again. He can't turn his head, can’t shift his eyes to look at her. He can't parse the words she is saying - not really, not when - context, that's what he doesn't have. His lips tingle from where she touched him with the soft tissue, where she brushed away the physical signs of his complete and utter failure to thrive.

But she sits so close to him, he can smell her, smell that familiar tang of cheap body spray and acrid medication clinging to her skin. Underneath it, her own scent, so young and pure, full of hurt and anger. He can't smell much, his wolf too deeply wounded, too deeply hurt to heal him - _His Alpha should be here, his Alpha should heal him, his Alpha should - should..._

The anger bubbles in his chest but no sign of it shows, his heartbeat stays sluggish, his breathing an even rattle. But the anger doesn't stay, doesn't fester - not when his small human starts talking and these words, he knows. These words, they are familiar. A better time, a better place.

When she speaks, Peter doesn't see the flames behind his sightless eyes. He sees lush, rolling hills, and a hole in the ground. A hobbit hole, which meant comfort.

Just like her.

**

When summer - and summer school - rolls around, Erica has something of a routine in regards to Mr. Hale. She wants to call him Peter, in the privacy of her own mind, but she doesn't think she should. She thinks people think she's weird already. She knows none of the nurses buy that he's her uncle, but she's still the only one who goes to see him because only one of them ever gives her trouble - and even Nurse Earle doesn’t stop her. 

Because no, the fact that he woke up was not enough to make Laura and Derek to come back. Or even _call_. She wonders if hearing a familiar voice would make him start out of his weird state, or if anything ever will. 

On the days she is in the hospital for herself - and on two occasions, the morning after long, painful nights - she visits him briefly. Sometimes it’s just a few minutes, sometimes longer, but she goes into his room, sits in the second chair that appeared sometime in late May. She can never make real plans for these days, so she doesn’t. It feels like it’s enough just to be there, to be with someone who doesn’t judge her, doesn’t resent her. Someone who won’t hold it against her that she cries. 

On the days she goes to visit him, she brings a book, her homework, sometimes the nail clippers and hand lotion, oftentimes a comb. (They’d cut his hair when she asked about it. No one would trust her with scissors. Not like that.) She sometimes still sits on the floor when she reads to him, or when she does her homework because there’s no table other than the one on his bedside, still only decorated by the cards she’s brought him, by the flowers she picked on the way in. It’s not often that she can do this - her mom doesn’t want her leaving the house alone, doesn’t have the time to drop her off or come back for her. 

It helps that she’s ostensibly walking to the hospital with the two guys she followed the day Peter woke up - Stiles Stilinski and Scott McCall. Scott’s got a bracelet, too, but it’s for asthma and not for epilepsy - and he often goes straight from school to the hospital to meet his mom, Nurse McCall. So Erica is not lying when she’s saying she is walking with other people and not haring off alone. Just because she’s… a few steps behind and not talking to them doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like she minds, they’re not telling her to go away or trying to push her around, so they’re much preferable to a lot of other people. And, she thinks quietly, they’re both cute. Scott’s crooked jaw and Stiles’ moles both draw her eyes sometimes. 

She mentions it to Peter one day, then clamps her jaw shut. It feels wrong. Peter is - Peter is not her friend. Not really. He is something else. He’s - he’s _hers_ , in a way no one else is. Because no one else will have them. 

Both Scott and Stiles go to summer school, too. They’re not supposed to know why, but Erica hears things. Hears ADD and hears _loss_ , hears Asthma and absences. 

She has a present for him. She told her _abuela_ about him - not much, not everything, just that she sometimes visits someone in the long term ward. Her _abuela_ has always been big into charity and thinks Erica is doing good, and when she hears that Peter spends most of the time sitting in a chair, she crochets him a throw specially designed for the chair.

"You should learn to crochet, too," she tells Erica.

Erica just nods. She would like to - it's one of the things she would love to do, but the patterns and the - finickiness of it give her headaches. "I will," she says and she doesn't really mean it.

She hopes sixth grade will be better. She's wrong.

**

Peter can feel the seasons pass outside even through closed blinds, can feel the sweet siren call of the moon. It tugs at him, tugs at his wolf painfully, jarring apart jagged edges inside him. But he cannot act on it, cannot even open his mouth to say - someone open the window. Let the wind in. Let him feel something, anything that isn't the taste of death and disinfectant.

It is agonizing and slow, but with every passing day, he knows he's closer to waking. Closer to - not being whole, no, he will not be whole, not like this, but closer to being able to reach out and - have. Have his revenge. Have his pack. Have his - he will never have his family back.

His wolf howls at the loss, muting everything around him. Sometimes even her, when she comes to visit.

She has a name, his small human. She's called Erica. It's a good name. Strong name. He hears the nurses call her by her name, when they tell her it's time to go. Always the nurses, never friends or family.

Her scent is better in the summer. Stronger. Less angry, without the tang of misery that clings to it. But when the fall comes around, when he can smell people, can smell gym socks and lockers and school miasma, she trembles when she touches him. When she brushes his hair and wraps her skinny arms around him, leans her head on his shoulder as she curls up in his lap "Why are they so mean?"

Oh, child. She has so much to learn. 

But his wolf sits up, takes note. The anger and grief in her, it's not his. It's not the abject loss of everything that ties him to this earth that he's reeling with, but it is still a familiar emotion - from before the fire, the abandonment, the torment. He wants his revenge. He wants her revenge, too.

No one will hurt her like he's been hurt.

**

Erica goes through a series of growth spurts in sixth grade, all her shirts and jeans too short at the wrist and ankle constantly, but she's got no boobs or hips. Her mom says she should be glad, that tits and periods are just a pain and she should pray to God she doesn't have them any time soon. But when she sees Lydia Martin in her perfect flowery dress swanning down the hall and the way all the boys stare at the sway of her (still skinny but nothing like Erica's) hips, sees the way Stiles' jaw drops and when he nearly walks into the wall, it stings.

She wants to be pretty, too. She wants to have guys ask if they can carry her books or go for an ice cream or just look at her in a way that isn't full of scorn and pity.

Maybe it would be better to be invisible. There is a boy in her class who no one talks to. She's not sure if Boyd is his first name or last. But she doesn't dare to talk to him outside class, either. Because it's better to have a silent ally in the back of the class than it is to have even him reject her. But he makes a good partner for a group project because he takes meticulous notes and shares. Sydney takes notes but doesn’t share, but she’s also a suck-up and a teacher’s pet. At least that means she’s too busy to make fun of Erica for being sick. She misses Danielle and Heather from elementary school a lot. 

Erica goes to summer school again. Stiles and Scott don't, but her mom doesn't have to know that. It seems like her mom doesn't even care any more, not with the fact that the new meds are even more expensive than the old ones and Erica keeps shooting up like a weed and needs new clothes.

Her dad is almost never home these days, working long hours or traveling on the job.

She thinks her parents haven't even noticed she doesn't have friends her own age, that she just visits Peter in the hospital. Her mom would if she ever asked, but she never does. She's just happy Erica is not underfoot and takes her meds. Sometimes Erica hates her parents, but not like.. not like she hates Peter's family. Her mom still comes to visit her when she goes into the hospital after she has a bad seizure in class, brings her cookies and tells her she's gotta be more careful.

Erica isn't sure seventh grade is gonna be any better.

**

Peter's thoughts are more coherent now. But he is still weak. Sometimes, he thinks he can twitch his fingers at will, that he can - wiggle his big toe - but it's not enough. His wolf is lean and hungry, raging at the fact that they are weak, were too weak - weakness is not to be tolerated. He needs to be strong again.

Slowly, the hole inside him where the pack bonds have been torn apart - where he can still feel the faintest hint of bond to Laura and Derek, where he can feel a fraying, like taffy pulled too far apart that's fallen and collapsed because they left, because they abandoned him - is healing. There's a new bond there, his small human's visits bringing something to life. 

She's such a good pup. Her touch is so gentle on him. She doesn't touch him much, most of it is still functional, tasks the nurses ought to be doing, but don't because Erica is willing to. She rubs his hands with lotion and - ha! clips his nails, as if they weren't fearsome talons under the guise of normalcy. She brushes his hair, pulls it away from his face and touches his scars softly. And she talks.

He wants to tell her it will be better. That he will make it better.

***

It's in the spring of seventh grade that Erica realizes she really, really likes Stiles. It's when he trips Jackson Whitmore straight into a puddle of mud because Jackson was mean to Scott about his asthma. In that moment, Stiles looks like a knight in a shining armor to her, and all she can think of is, _that's what I want._

It's not exactly daydreaming, but she thinks about Stiles doing the same for her. Pushing Jackson into a puddle of mud. Throwing Greenberg's spit balls right back in his face. Of what it would be like to have someone ask her if she has her meds on her and is she sure, the same way Stiles asks Scott. 

And he's so cute. He's got such a cute upturned nose, and Erica wonders what it would be like to kiss him. To touch the moles that pattern his skin. To have his delicate, long-fingered hands in hers.

(It's all so different from Peter. Peter who looks regal rather than cute, with scarred skin that's not smooth at all, his hands, even in his state, strong and broad.)

She laughs at his jokes in class and she almost, almost gathers the courage to ask him if she could sit with him and Scott - she's already standing next to them in the corridor, she starts to say "Hi Stiles - " but she's not even done saying the hello when Stiles is swept away, literally turning on his heel to run over to Lydia Martin, who pays him no heed.

That evening, Erica cries into her pillow for hours.

She tries very hard not to cry at Peter, too, but she can't help it. "I just want him to look at me," she whispers as she blows her nose, leaning her head against his knee. It's easier to sit on the floor and pretend to read than it is to sit on the chair. "I just want someone to look at me."

***

He can almost taste the salt in her tears and it infuriates him. Darling, he wants to say, he's a fuckboy. And we do not date fuckboys. Because guys like this - what is a Stiles, anyway? - he knows the type. They moon over their redheaded goddess who won't give them the time of day and leave those who would give them everything broken-hearted in their wake.

If that little shit ever dares to touch his small human...

His small human hugs him, and he can smell the slow start of the change in her. She's taller, now, her arms longer, the hair that brushes against his cheek feels different. She's growing up, and he can tell she's starting to mature into womanhood. She's still so very young, too young for letting some punk get anywhere near her. She's his. His small human. His Erica.

He wishes he could tell her that, but even as his wolf gnashes its teeth inside him, he cannot even lift a finger to stroke her hand.

When she leaves, he can feel a lone tear of sympathy trailing down his cheek.

**

Erica never wants to think about eighth grade again. Stupid Stiles and stupid Lydia Martin and her perfect hair and perfect clothes and the fact that she’s allowed to wear _lipstick > and nail polish to school. _

When Noah and Emily ask her if she wants to come with them to a party, she says yes. She doesn’t realize it’s not that kind of a party. It’s the kind of a party where they have pastors and people in suits who think they’re hip with the kids and tell them having sex before marriage is bad and girls who let boys kiss them are used goods. They have a band and everything. 

They have _strobes._

When Erica is in the hospital, Noah and Emily both come in to apologise. They bring her one of the rings they wear - a purity ring. 

Erica puts it on. It feels nice. Having something between her and the world, some _reason_ for her to say she’s not going to the dances. Not going out with boys. Not because anyone would laugh at the idea of taking her to the dances, but because she believes in something. Even if she sometimes thinks she doesn’t, no matter how many rosaries her _abuela_ gives her. 

She likes the ring. She likes the idea of being with someone who wants her for good, someone who wants her forever. That it won’t be a stupid joke or just someone trying to - she just wants someone to want her for _her_ , want her for real. It’s Emily who says it, whispers conspiratorially that it’s a great way to weed out the ones only after one thing even if she won’t hold onto it all the way. 

It's gonna be different in high school. The worst of her bullies won't go to Beacon Hills High. It will be better. She’ll make friends. There will be boys other than Stiles, boys who won’t shy away from her if she even looks their way. 

**

Turns out she’s wrong, and high school sucks. And so does getting her period - her mom was _right_ , she hates the cramps and hates how her chest aches, how it feels like her breasts came in overnight. Her mom takes her shopping but only gets her training bras that feel like they’re too small already. She hates the way her body feels, too hot or too cold, and so sticky, full of cravings she can’t do anything about. 

She touches herself. She’s not very good at it, and it only makes her more frustrated. 

She layers a lot more. Drapes big t-shirts she hopefully won’t grow too tall for under sweaters, loose jeans and sneakers. She doesn’t want to give them one more thing to mock her about, one more thing to use to hurt her. It’s bad enough her nails are always bitten and her hair a mess, like it’s her fault she’s not allowed to use hair spray or dye it, or even cut it short because her mom says it’s her crowning glory. 

It’s a rat’s nest, and she hates it. 

Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail when she visits Peter, a month after school starts. She wishes she’d been able to come sooner, but the teachers were right. High school is a lot of work and she’s been too exhausted to think, let alone make her way to the hospital with her mom’s insistence that she come pick Erica up because of _concerns._

She knows it will stop soon enough, her mom will think everything is okay and fine and dandy and Erica is just exaggerating because that sort of a thing doesn’t happen in Beacon Hills, sweetie, we don’t have a bullying problem. 

Her bullies didn’t all come to Beacon Hills High, but the ones who did made new friends. Erica didn’t. 

Boyd is still here, and he’s as quiet as always. But he shies away from her just like all the guys do, and the girls wrinkle their noses and look down on her. They don’t want to be associated with the freak, they think being a hot mess, being _sick_ is contagious somehow. They all try to be friends with Lydia Martin, whose perfect hair and perfect makeup and perfect _boyfriend_ make her the most popular freshman in Beacon Hills. Everyone says Jackson will make first line in Lacrosse once the season starts, even Stiles and Scott. They want to join the team, too. 

She tells him everything as she curls up in his lap. She knows she's too big to do this any more, too gangly, but she missed him and she hopes he missed her too. And she's still small - puberty or not, she's waifish, and the nurses keep asking her if she's eating as if she had something else to worry about than the meds causing nausea.

Peter's heartbeat is steady under her cheek, and he's so warm against her. She knows this is probably wrong but she doesn't care. She can close her eyes, pretend he's going to move, any moment now, to take hold of her, to stroke her hair and tell her it's okay - that she's strong and beautiful and he cares for her, just as much as she cares for him because she's a stupid loser who can't get a date. "I just want someone to like me," she says softly, the words muffled by the soft fabric of his light sweater. It's one she brought him, one she saw at the thrift shop that she thought would match his eyes, fit the still impressive breadth of his shoulders. With his family never visiting, he's stuck with hospital issue clothes and donations.

She knows when the nurses will come by again, to remind her that visiting hours will be over soon. Most of them are nice, it's just Nurse Early who really doesn't like her. Erica tries to make sure she knows when the nurse is working, to make sure she's not here at the same time and it's lucky that the nurse prefers nights.

"Do you want me to close the window?" she asks Peter when she gets up, softly stroking his scarred cheek. She knows he won't answer, won't react, but sometimes she thinks that if she asks often enough, then maybe, just maybe he's going to finally start talking. Moving. (He woke up when she kissed him. She tries very hard not to think about it so she won't be tempted to do it again.)

He says nothing but she thinks she can see his head tilt a little to the left; she takes that as a no and leaves the window be, lets the last vestiges of sunlight and summer breeze into the room. 

"I will be back soon," she tells him before she goes. "Promise."

She doesn't look back when she exits the room and misses the way his fingers twitch, hand lifting from the armrest of the chair in an aborted grab.

**

 _She deserves so much more than just someone who likes he_. She smells like life. She smells like warmth and beauty and anger still, smells like she's finally no longer hanging at the cusp of womanhood, but growing into full bloom. There's a part of Peter that says she's still a child, that's the human part, the civilized part, not the part that is tied into his wolf. His wolf is howling, the scent of her, the feel of her against him. God, it's been so long, it had been so long even before the fire and now, feeling her press against him...

He never wants to let go of her. When she's here, when he can smell her, when her scent is clinging to his hair and clothes, on his skin, he can't smell the smoke. When she talks to him, he can't hear the screams. She's become his everything, the only thing besides bloody revenge that matters in this hellhole.

He wants to move, he wants to take hold of her and never let her go. Wants to _take_ her. Never let anyone hurt her. Not the foolish children, not the dumb lacrosse jocks - what kind of a sport is that, why aren't they playing basketball any more? He was so good, he was the captain of the winning team. Derek was on the team, was going to be the captain after Laura, was going to... 

His wolf growls at the thought of his pack, growls and gnashes and howls at the pain of loss.

The pain of betrayal.

Peter is trapped in this fleshy prison, straining to simply lift a hand, to make his body bend to his will once more because he was betrayed.

Betrayed by Derek, who did not listen.

Betrayed by Laura, who did not care.

**

Erica visits him again once the doctors let her go after the… _incident_ in biology. She hates camera phones, hates her classmates. 

She thinks she sees his hands move towards her but knows it has to be an illusion, wishful thinking. He’s not going to be her prince charming, not going to save her. No one will. Peter is just as much trapped by his body as she is, the difference is that she’s still walking around. 

For now. 

She goes home and dreams about him, about walking into the room only for to Peter to stand up, tell her he’s been waiting for her and pulling her into his arms. She dreams about his blue eyes meeting hers, about what it would be like to feel his lips brush against hers with intent. She dreams about _more_ , an indistinct burning, a deep yearning inside her to be touched, to be wanted far more viscerally than ever before. She dreams about his hands, about his broad neck, about all the things she has only heard of. 

She hates it, she doesn’t want to wake up to sticky sheets and aching hips. She doesn’t want to wake from those dreams at all. 

**

He can smell her tears again and his wolf howls with rage at the thought of his human, his Erica, being hurt and humiliated. He tries to reach for her, tries so hard but the moon is dark, the sun is high and he has no power. 

She is here, she is _taking care_ of him, her soft hands brushing through his hair, smoothing the wrinkles of his clothes as she moves the blanket over his knees. She’s taking care of him when he should be taking care of her, should be the one to hold her, teach her, have her. He should be the Alpha, should be strong enough for her. 

But he is getting stronger. He can - he can almost move his hands. He can feel it in his bones, feel the moon coming closer. Can feel the anticipation, taste it in the air. A perigee syzygy will come soon. 

****

Erica makes Peter a Christmas card. This one is far more refined than the first one she brought, the one that is still hiding in the drawer of his bedside table. She likes the way the reindeer on it look, the way she got the snow just right. 

Again, there’s no card from his family. There wasn’t one for his birthday in October, either, nor a phone call. As far as Erica knows, in the years she’s visited him, his family never has, and the phone calls to check on him have been few and far between. 

She got him a new set of slippers and a matching robe for his birthday; for Christmas, she’s gotten him some better toiletries, shaving cream and lotion she thinks he’ll like better than the stuff the hospital has. 

“We’re spending Christmas with _abuela_ ,” she tells him when she visits him, holding onto his hand. “I’m sorry I can’t be here with you. It’s not fair that you have to be alone. It’s not fair they don’t come see you. They left you here, and it’s stupid and awful.”

***

Soon. Soon, he will have his body back.

Soon, he will have his revenge. 

Soon, he will have _her._

**

The start of the new semester is hard on her. She catches a cold and has to stay home for nearly a week, and then work hard to catch up on everything. Harris is _such a dick_. Especially since Erica makes the mistake of laughing at something Stiles says in class. 

Lacrosse season starts and she goes to watch the tryouts. Scott and Stiles both try out and make it to the team, but not first line. She wonders if that is the coach taking pity on them, but she can’t imagine Finstock taking pity on anyone, ever. Not with the way he shouts and rambles and seems larger than life. 

It’s the end of January when she can finally make it to see Peter. She is so tired and just so fucking done with everything, she doesn't really even think when she drops her bag on the floor and doesn't sit on the chair, or even the ground. She drapes herself in Peter's lap, like she's still small, like she isn't all gangle and sore breasts, hidden under yet another goodwill sweatshirt.

"I'm just so tired," she murmurs into his chest, breathing in the scent that's become so familiar to her over the years. Hospital and medicine and disinfectant can't hide the scent she can tell is him, that's all man, and nothing like the vomit inducing clouds of axe and sweat that the boys in her school are. All of them. When she walked here behind Scott and Stiles, she could swear she could have followed them with her eyes closed because ugh.

It's dark in the room; someone had left the ceiling light off, only the table light illuminating the room. The sun has already gone down and the moon is rising to the sky. It's quiet, and she likes it that way. She's not sure which one of the nurses is on duty, besides Nurse McCall, but she thinks they won't disturb her.

She has a book in her bag, and she knows she should read it, read it out loud to him. But it's stupid, and he's warm and comfortable against her. Not to say he's soft - because he isn't even when his sweater is. He should have withered even with the physiotherapy, but he hasn't. He's still solid and broad under her, and there's a part of her that wonders what it would be like if she turned around, if she straddled him instead of having her legs over his knee like she's riding sidesaddle.

She blushes against him and closes her eyes. She knows it's wrong to think like that, but when he moves his head, just a little, and she can feel his warm breath against her hair, it feels so right.

**

Peter can feel the moon tugging at him, can feel the perigee coming closer, coming near. He's surrounded by her scent, her warm body in his lap, pressing against him, and his wolf howls in anticipation. 

When the moon reaches its peak, something inside him tears free. 

Peter makes a noise deep in his throat that is closer to a growl than anything human; his hands clench into fists, jerking up from the armrests to come around her.

He can feel the moon singing in his blood and burning in his eyes when she lifts her head from his chest to look him in the eyes.

"Peter?" Her voice is soft and broken, full of surprise and disbelief.

***

She can't believe it, she must have fallen asleep. It can't be that Peter is - he's making a noise that's nothing like she's ever heard, his eyes boring into hers and they're glowing, glowing so bright and blue in the dark. His hands are no longer clenching the armrests; instead, he's wrapping his arms around her and holding onto her like - like

"Peter?" she says softly, incredulously. "You're - you're awake? I'll - I'll get the nurse, I'll-"

He shakes his head, almost violently, and tightens his hold. Erica swallows hard. She knows she should get a nurse, she should scream, she should - wake up - but she can't, not when he's holding her so tight, not when his inhuman eyes feel like fire as they look straight into her eyes.

He makes another strange noise, and then he's ducking his head, he's moving to rub his face into the crook of her neck, and it reminds Erica of nothing more than it does of a dog or some other big animal, intent on scenting her. On marking her.

There's a wetness against her skin, and she's cried enough to recognize tears when she feels them. He's crying - he's crying and rubbing his face against her and it's - it's something she can't comprehend, something magical. It's a miracle, and if she's asleep she doesn't want to wake up because her - because Peter is awake.

Her hands unclench from the fabric of his sweater and come up to cup his face, gentle and careful. He makes another deep noise when she touches his scars but doesn't lift up, doesn't stop nuzzling her neck in a way that should be bad touch but isn't. His hands on her, on the back of her neck and the curve of her hip, they should be bad and wrong too but they aren't. They're strong and solid, and she feels like she's safe.

He raises his head after what feels like an eternity but could not have been longer than a few minutes. His eyes are wide and blue, too bright, too inhuman. She can see the start of fangs in his mouth, see the tension in his thick neck, feel it against her body as he tilts his head back as if in agony.

She wants to do something, anything, but she doesn't know what she can do, she can only watch, can only hang on as he groans, an animal growl mixed into the sound. Like he's fighting something, like he's fighting his own body for control.

"Peter?" she says his name again, her heart hammering in her throat. She's trembling all over, too, the tension in his body affecting hers. It's nothing like she's felt before a seizure, something else, something big. "Whats going on?"

He quietens down, lifts his head up again. His eyes are fading quick, back to the usual startling blue that isn't backlit neon. The fangs have disappeared, leaving nothing but dried, chapped lips behind, the look on his face tired and confused.

"Erica..." he whispers and oh, his voice is rough and deep, and nothing like she ever imagined. It's so much better, to hear him say her name. “So good to me, my little human. So good to me, helping me - helping me heal.”

Erica swallows hard. "If I'm human, then what are you?"

The sound he makes is almost a laugh. Almost. "Wolf."

**

Peter wanes quickly, to the point where Erica wonders if it ever really happened. But she has a wet spot at the collar of her shirt, she has actual beard burn on her neck - a reddened patch where he rubbed his face against her skin, got his scent on her.

He's slumped in the chair, like a puppet with cut strings, eyes closed and his breathing even. But it did happen, he did wake up and hold her and call her his little human. Because her prince - because Peter is not a human. He's a wolf.

It's so much, too much. Erica feels like she's going to faint, like she's about to break out in tears or just scream because he's - he's a wolf and nothing makes sense any more.

But he told her to - to go home and come back soon. Let no one know.

_"Don't let anyone know. Or they'll come back."_

_"Who? Your family?_

_"No. Hunters."_

And that one word had had such venom in it, it makes something burn inside Erica. That same special angry place she has deep inside her, the one that's angry at the world, at her illness, at her parents, at everyone who's ever hurt her.

So, she goes home, she goes home and goes through the motions, of washing her hair and washing her teeth and putting on her pajamas, only to lie in bed wide awake, unable to close her eyes without seeing the bright unnatural blue of his. 

When she finally sleeps, she dreams. 

**

Slowly, he grows stronger. It takes months, the weeks between full moons long and dire. 

She comes back to him, his small human, comes back with wide eyes and a feeling of disbelief - but she’s not uneasy, is not afraid when she comes to him. 

She sits at his feet when he talks to her, slowly, the words grating through his long-unused throat like sandpaper on gravel. 

He strokes her hair, gently and softly, twining the blonde strands through his weak fingers, as she leans her head on his knee and asks him questions.

"It helps," he says with honesty when she asks about how he'd nuzzled her neck, how he'd tried to get his scent everywhere on her.

"Do you - do you want to do it again?" she asks, and there is a frisson of hope in her voice that makes his breath catch.

"Of course," he tells her and before he can say anything else, she's stood up, hesitating only for a moment before she's in his lap, legs draped awkwardly over his.

She looks at him, dark eyes wide and full of anticipation and something else. She's got such beautiful eyes, heavyset and languorous. She's so pale with sickness, but she knows once she's bitten, she will be full of life. The strength of her body will match the strength of her spirit.

She fits perfectly at the crook of his neck, her soft, warm breath on his skin somewhere between bliss and abject torture. He wraps an arm around her shoulder blades and keeps on talking, telling her about wolves, and about his pack.

About the fire.

Her words are muffled against him when she asks him, what is he going to do? Is he going to go to the police?

Peter shakes his head. "I need my strength back."

"How can I help?"

And oh, she is so perfect. His small human, his Erica. So perfect.

Because when their eyes meet again, he can see an answering anger behind hers.

**

Erica is waiting for him the first time he leaves the hospital. It takes them months to get here, months of watching him cursing when he cannot stand up on his own, months of her heart catching in her throat when he tries to take a few tentative steps.

It's middle of the summer, the air hot and heavy. It's a full moon, strawberry moon, and she thinks she should be more concerned than she is that her parents have no idea how often she sneaks out, how often she's somewhere she shouldn't be. As long as she doesn't have a seizure, as long as she takes her meds, as long as there's no calls from school... she feels like she is invisible to them.

Not so with Peter.

With Peter, now that he's awake? She feels more alive than she's ever been. He understands her, understands what it's like to be trapped in a prison made of your own flesh and bone, knows what it's like to - to suffer. Even though she knows his suffering is magnitudes greater than her own.

He comes to her in the preserve. The moon is high up in the sky, and his eyes glow a relentless, bright blue. He's stronger than he is when there's no full moon, but he's also - she doesn't know what words to use, but she thinks maybe cognizant is a good one, because he's still very much aware, still very much Peter, but he's also closer to the wolf.

It shows in the way he backs her up against a tree, the way he buries his face in her neck and licks the clammy sweat on her skin. Erica whimpers, her body going slack against his, every touch of his tongue on her skin sending a bolt of fire through her nerves, pooling at the pit of her belly. Her breasts ache where they're pressed against his chest, the scrape of fabric against them feeling as sharp as his teeth feel as they graze against her neck. Her back arches and she moans, high in her throat, threatening to turn into begging, into please. 

He pulls back, eyes wide, and sniffs the air, gulping air in big lungfuls that make Erica acutely aware that she's aroused, that she can feel the wet heat soaking through her panties. For a long delirious moment she thinks he's going to do - something, but instead he pulls back with a grimace and tilts his head, gesturing for her to follow.

Her cheeks burn with anger and humiliation both when she sits on a fallen log, waiting for him. He hasn't spoken, hasn't - she doesn't know what she wants him to do other than not push her away, not just leave her here while he goes and - she doesn’t even know what he’s doing! 

Failing to catch rabbits, it turns out. He tires too easy still, stumbles, the knees of his pants covered in mud and tears. There’s twigs in his hair when he comes back to her. Slumps on the ground next to her and rests his head on her knee, their positions reversed. His words are halting and rough when he says he couldn't catch anything, his shoulders trembling under her touch. 

She helps him clean up, helps him remove the twigs and leaves silently before they head back to the hospital. She watches until she makes sure he gets through his window, gets back into the room. 

Erica is tired, too; she makes it home unscatched, makes it to her bed without her parents being any the wiser. She lays down and closes her eyes, tries to sleep because she’s supposed to go to school in a few hours, but all she can think of is Peter, the way he touched her, the way he made her feel. 

The way he pulled away from her. 

Her pillow is soaked through with tears by the time she falls into fitful sleep. 

***

Peter is weary to the bone when she comes to see him the day after the full moon. He had been so stupid, thinking he could do anything but stumble around aimlessly, his strength still lacking, healing pains still wracking his body. But he is not going to heal, not from this, not without pack. Not without Alpha. And until he is strong, he cannot have his revenge. 

He closes his eyes when he scents her in the air. Last night the wolf was so close to the surface, so much of his strength that when he’d scented her, he’d overwhelmed her, He can still taste her, remembers how badly he wanted to do more than have his mouth on her neck. But he knows better than to try to take. 

She’s angry, tired and hesitant when she comes in. There are bags under her eyes, and she looks like she’s been crying. Anger flares inside him and he wants to rip off the head of anyone who hurts her - tear them limb from limb, use them for practice before he rips the hunters apart…

But she hesitates because of him. And he cannot have that. 

She’s in his lap, this time she’s straddling him, her head resting on his shoulder as he gently strokes her hair. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I know I’m - I’m...”

And he can’t have her saying those things about herself. Not his small human, or not so small, so perfect in her anger and willingness to be his. 

So he kisses her. 

She comes alive in his arms in that moment, body alighting with fervor he can smell, her heartbeat spiking so hard. She trembles, trembles as much as he does when he touches her face, when he brushes her lips with his time and time again. 

“I’ve never been kissed,” she says softly, her eyes wide. 

“Do you want me to kiss you again?”

“Yes. Please - “

So he does, he licks his way into her mouth, tastes the sweet hums of pleasure, enjoys how she responds so eagerly to him. It’s magical, the first time he’s kissed someone in - in far too long, every gentle brush of her hands on his face another jolt through his body that is an iridescent desire. 

“I’ve - I’ve never - “

“I’ll show you how.”

She asks him if wolves mate for life. 

He tells her the truth, for what it’s worth -tells her about the strength of mate bonds, about how no two bonds are alike, and the prevalence of consensual polyamory. He hasn't forgotten about her crush, no matter how much he wants to keep her for himself, now and forever. 

“We’ll belong to each other,” he tells her as he kisses her hair softly. “As long as you’ll want me.” 

**

Erica starts her sophomore year and has two seizures in a short span of time. 

She thinks about taking off the purity ring, but if she’s being honest, what she and Peter have done it's - it’s not going all the way. He hasn’t even put his hands under her shirt - she’s sensitive enough that he can make her whimper just by brushing a hand over her t-shirt and bra, cupping her breast gently as he whispers to her what he will do once he’s whole again. 

She’s shivered apart in his arms from frottage alone, and Erica knows there’s lots of girls who have done some really freaky stuff while wearing their rings because they’re still virgins on a technicality.

But at least periods suck a lot less when Peter is there to touch her, to draw away the ache and simply be _warm_ against her tummy, so sophomore year looks a lot better than freshman year already. 

**

Peter catches a deer and rips out its throat. 

He draws the spiral, the symbol of a vendetta on its side.

“Now we wait,” he tells her when she helps him clean the blood off his face. 

***

The animals alone aren’t enough. There still has not been so much as a phone call from his family, and they are the ones they need. 

Erica finds Laura Hale’s address in Peter’s file. She shouldn't be able to see it, but she knows the routines here well enough by now, knows where and when she can sneak a peek to see the information for next of kin. 

It’s a PO box in New York. 

There’s been some news coverage about the animal deaths. Someone is suggesting a satanic cult and Erica wants to laugh, say this isn’t an episode of Supernatural, only it is and no one knows it. No one knows that the last DA before Jackson’s dad was a _werewolf_ , like most of her family. 

The picture in the paper is smudged, the spiral isn’t clear enough. But she knows who would have better photos, so she goes straight to the source. 

Dr. Deaton is skeptical when she asks if he has a copy of the photo. For a school project. But Scott Mccall is there and Erica is surprised he even _knows her name_ but Scott vouches for her - says she goes to school with him and that they are doing a lot of projects this semester. 

She has a gorgeous glossy technicolor picture of Peter’s proclamation of revenge she mails to Laura Hale, together with the clippings. 

The envelope is wrinkled with how harsh she is when she closes it; the anger she feels towards Laura Hale still burns bright, but according to Peter, Laura is the Alpha. 

And they need an Alpha. 

She can heal Peter. 

And she can bite Erica. 

Erica hates the idea of being beholden for someone like that for the rest of her life, but if she gets the bite, she will _have_ a life, and for that? There is not a lot Erica would not give, for a shot at having a life that’s not constantly overshadowed by her body and brain betraying her. 

**

The Wolf moon is high in the sky as Peter and Erica settle in to wait for Laura. 

She is in town - this much Peter knows for sure, the ashes of pack bonds glowing deep inside his chest. She is here, but she has not come by the hospital - not even nearby, not once during the week she’s been here. 

Laura is not the only one in town. Peter’s scented something familiar, something beyond aconite and gunpowder, but not close enough to tell for sure. He heard words, low and muted, and Nurse Earle being adamant that only family are allowed to visit. 

It darkens Peter’s already angry mood even further. His wolf is close to the surface, so close, the rage boiling close to the surface. He is so, so angry. 

But he has to rein it in. 

He’s not here to fight Laura. He _needs_ her. 

He needs Laura to bite his small human, and then… well. Peter only knows the theory. Doesn’t know how it works in practice. But he knows, how an Alpha can heal a grievously wounded pack member. How it will take a lot, how it might take too much, but how it is possible. 

Laura can heal him, and then they can have their revenge. (And once they’ve decimated the hunters for once and for all, Peter intends to have .. words with Laura. But only after.) 

Beside him, Erica shivers in the chill air. She looks so pale under the moonlight, her hands shoved into the pockets of her big coat. He wants to hold her, wants to warm her with his own body, wants to - he wants _more_ , and the moonlight singing in his veins is calling to him, calling him to have his mate. Seal their bond. 

But he cannot cease to be vigilant. Not with the hunters, not with the not-his-Alpha-anymore prowling around. 

(Not that he didn’t scent her the moment he saw her, that he didn’t push her against a tree and kiss her wet and deep until she was moaning for more. His self control is frayed by the full moon, by the knowledge that she’s gone fertile again. She’s far too young for that, far too young for him to even _think_ about putting his pups in her, but that does nothing to diminish the heady knowledge that he _could_.)

He is still surprised by Laura’s arrival. 

“Uncle Peter?” 

He spins around on his heel, a low growl in his throat. She is standing before him, tall and regal with flashing red eyes, an incredulous sneer on her face. 

“Laura,” he growls, his fangs itching to drop. 

“You’re the one who’s been doing this?” Her eyes flick to Erica, who’s making Peter so proud, standing tall even though she shivers in the cold, chin up high meeting Laura’s eyes. Nothing like prey. Not weak.

“You sent me the photos?”

Peter smirks. “She did,” he nods his head towards Erica.

Laura’s eyes narrow. “She wants the bite.”

Peter doesn’t bother to deny it. “Yes. And _I_ want our revenge, niece.” _Not_ Alpha.

Laura laughs. She _laughs_ , her voice ringing cold and clear like sleigh bells through the air. “You make quite the pair, Uncle Peter. You think I’d bite someone that stinks of weakness?” 

Peter growls. He hates to be reminded of the scent of sickness and medicine, of frailty that clings to Erica. That clings to his human. “You will bite her.”

“And then what? Let you two little _lovebirds_ go on a revenge spree? Look at yourself, Peter. You can barely stand. You’re no better than she is.”

And Laura is _right_ , Peter _is_ weak, he is frail. He has nothing but his anger to sustain him, nothing but his anger and the way his small human makes him feel. 

“You’re pathetic,” Laura sneers.

“You’re supposed to be the alpha,” Peter snarls in response. “But you _ran_. Now, _be one_ and bite her!” 

Laura laughs. “Her. Look at her, Peter. She’s a pale, miserable wretch. The worst kind of human. You think she’s worthy of the gift? That if I bite her, the bite will actually _take_?” 

And oh yes, the irony, the wretched, wretched irony. Peter remembers Derek, remembers poor, sweet Paige. He remembers Ennis' brutality, remembers burying her body in these woods.

He's told Erica the bite might mean her life.

But Erica is adamant. She could die any day from her illness. From an accident. From the medication they treat her with. The bite is worth it for her.

Laura's eyes gleam in the moonlight. "We'll see if you have the balls to end it like Derek did, or if you will slither into the hole you should have never crawled from!"

And in that instant she's not there anymore and Erica is screaming, high pitched and in agony as Laura's teeth sink into her arm, rip through fabric and flesh with ease.

Laura pushes her away, and Erica stumbles to the ground. Peter's first instinct is to jump at her, to go to her to see if she is okay, tell her it will be all right. He won't leave her, he will be here for when she wakes up - she will wake up, he refuses to believe she will die! - but Laura is too fast, she's moving again -

Air escapes from his lungs as Laura smashes him against the tree, claws curled into the fabric of Peter's shirt. "You and your little revenge fantasies. You think you can do what I couldn't, what mom couldn't? You think you're still a real wolf when you're nothing but a sad, sick bastard. Where did you find her? A cancer ward? Someone just as broken as you, you decided to use her for bait. Make me sympathetic so you could try to trick me. But you won't. I'll do what I should have done in the first place - " Laura draws her hand back, and Peter growls deep in his chest, struggles against her grip.

"I should have become the Alpha," he snarls at her. "You were not ready. You were never ready."

Laura laughs. "You think - "

She's interrupted mid sentence, a cry of pain ripped from her throat as she lets go of Peter, spins around to see Erica holding a bloody piece of wood.

Laura lifts her hand to touch her neck; it comes away bloody. "You little bitch dare to attack me?"

Peter is so proud of Erica in that moment. Her heartbeat is hammering though his ears, and she smells of pain and anger but no fear as she stands her ground and hefts the bloody branch again. Before he can say anything, before Erica can say anything, Laura roars and sends Erica flying to the trees.

He sees red.

Laura is already bleeding.

He goes for the throat.

  
***

Everything is spinning. Her arm throbs, her head throbs, everything throbs in time with her heartbeat.

Erica groans and tries to sit up but she can't, everything is so heavy -

"Erica..." It's Peter.

She opens her eyes, slowly. "Peter."

"It's okay, baby, it's okay. She's not going to hurt you any more." And even though Erica knows you shouldn't move someone who's been thrown out of a moving vehicle - because that's how this feels, that's how she feels after flying through the air because a werewolf threw her, he pulls her up, gathers her in his arms.

He smells different. Sharper. Stronger.

"Did she heal you?" she asks.

"Her power did."

And Erica understands. "She's dead." She can't quite keep the satisfaction out of her voice.

"Yes," he says, and she knows he can't help but regret it, no matter how angry he was. Because Laura was family and this was not supposed to happen. Not like this. 

"Am I going to die?" Erica doesn't think turning into a werewolf should feel like this. Shouldn't feel like the aftermath of a mother of all seizures. 

Slowly, gently, Peter lifts her hand, brings her bitten arm to light. In the dark, the blood looks black.

"You're bleeding," he says softly. "But it's blood, nothing but blood. The bite will take."

Erica closes her eyes. "Good."

When she opens them again, they glow a bright, inhuman gold as they meet Peter’s red ones. 

They come together in the woods, the new-found power coursing through their bodies too much to resist for either one of them. 

****

A hiker finds a body of a woman in the Preserve. 

_The Beginning._

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr @ [Screaming-towards-apotheosis](http://Screaming-towards-apotheosis.tumblr.com)!


End file.
